Last season's top 3

[Ryllharu]

Fall 2021

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Mieruko-chan - This was the series I looked forward to the most each week, and it has by far one of the best OPs all year (Kageki Shoujo still holds best ED for the year). A horror-comedy that is fundamentally about not judging things immediately from the way they look, or how you are interpreting their actions. Led by a top-tier performance from Amamiya Sora, take a very normal, but perhaps extraordinarily composed, high school girl and expose her the worst kind of supernatural horrors with absolutely no explanations on how to deal with it. It's sweet, it's touching, and it's funny. A number of people were thrown off by the ecchiness of the first few episodes, but that dies down rather quickly (and was faithfully representing the source material which started the same way before the author realized it was selling just fine without that).

Isekai Shokudou S2 - For what's essentially a foodgasm show, the fantasy world here is more fleshed out than the majority of fantasy isekai series out there. We know about all sorts of continents, cultures, politics, and a substantial amount of history of a world when we really only see minimal exposure to their daily lives outside of the restaurant. While you do have to mentally piece together all the tidbits we get of the Other World's layout and lore across the two seasons, the small inclusions that explain the other world is one of the things I love about the series. There are many "mainstay" isekai and fantasy series out that don't even have a 1/10th of the consistent worldbuilding that Isekai Shokudou has. It isn't a static one either, the geopolitics of the other world move in real time. The huge cast grows and changes along with every visit to the restaurant. But Aletta (demongirl part-time waitress) will always be my favorite.

Mushoku Tensei S2 - One that does come close to Isekai Shokudou's worldbuilding is this one! This season seemed more like a set up season for bigger events to come, and though it didn't quite have the depth of character development that the prior season had, the secondary and tertiary characters got their time to shine this season. The animation was top-tier and the performances were all stellar. The direction and pacing was a bit worse than the previous season, but that still puts it significantly higher in that regard than the majority of anime out there. It left me wanting more.

[MFauli]

1.) Ousama Ranking

Great adventure with lots of mystery and surprisingly good action scenes

2.) Mushoku Tensei

Just interesting to watch. Would be better with less ecchi shit.

3.) Kyoukai Senki

Babby's first mecha-anime, but it was a nice watch regardless

[neflight86]

Rounding out 2021:


3. Isekai Shokudou 2: I’m surprised this placed so high, but it maintained a steady pleasantness that kept me entertained every episode- a steady ‘hum’ of problem, food, problem solved. The world building, while very unnecessary, is appreciated and brought this above Assassin to make top three.


2. Mieruko-chan: The intrigue of ‘how the apparitions worked’ was never paid off, but the wait for it made this a must watch each week. Fan-service gave way to more complex ghost interactions, while the horror element remained relatively constant. I’m a bit cooled on this now in hindsight, but during the week-to-week this season this was a must watch.


1. Mushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu: Just all around good isekai that only stumbles for me by being a little too amrous for little narrative payoff. I always appreciated the ‘messy’ humanity of the character interactions, where no one knew the right answers always, and they clumsily navigated each other’s feelings and positions together. Animation was great and filtered to look like a long lost VHS tape, and I always enjoyed the meandering quest of the characters, even though the varied story beats were up and down in quality.


_______________________

My horoscope warned that, if I was going to do special awards, today was the day to do it:


The ‘P.A.(public announcement)’ award goes to “Shiroi Suna no Aquatope”: P.A Works follows the beat of their own drum since their inception, typically telling stories set in contemporary Japan with fleshed out characters and one or two shoehorned in conservation causes(shrug). That is what this wound up being. The first half, building to the inevitable fate of Gama-Gama housed the majority of tension that loomed over the happy go lucky life at the aquarium as Kokoro tried desperately to save it, only to fail. The second cour started to falter after a brief timeskip settled on petty office politics at the new aquarium driving conflict, and even that had to go by the wayside. Look, I’m all for people getting along, but then they need something else to do, and ‘chasing their dreams’ is about as boring a substitute as I can imagine. By the end, I was regretting investing the time; consider yourself warned.


“Kaizoku Oujo” gets this season’s ‘one and done’ award: Say, what do pirates and rap battles have in common? Don’t bother guessing, I’ll tell you. Like I said about Hypnosis Mic a few seasons back, this is worth exactly one episode. That first episode felt like it was a real piece of a quality anime- storyboarded by adults and everything. After that, the direction of the story, mystery, and characters slowly but surely take a steady decline. Mercifully sparing you the details, what should be a globe trotting romp for treasure and adventure winds up with burning ghosts, the British navy fighting ninjas, and an albino fairy girl hybrid raiding Noah’s ark. It sounds much more meme than it winds up being. I may never forgive Bones for (fake) killing off those gorgeous fem pirates halfway through the show…


The ‘edge’ award teeters off and smashes into the floor for “Selection Project”: Cute girls singing and competing on American/Japanese Idol, and the bonds that they foster along the way. Why are you still reading this? It was nearly just almost not boring enough to keep watching. The CG dancing didn’t help.


The lovey-dovey his and hers fine china goes to “Shin no Nakama ja Nai to Yuusha no Party o Oidasareta node, Henkyou de Slow Life Suru Koto ni Shimashita”: The blushing and courtship was ever present in this fantasy side story of two consenting adults shaking up while the world burns down… or doesn’t? The central premise of how the ‘hero’s party’ related to the fate of the world didn’t make much sense to me during the end segments when the infallibility of Red became clear, and he was begged to return to the party presumably to help save the world, but instead chose… the booty beside him. Some lazy world building only serves to distract from what should be a sweet romance story and undermines the decency of the main pair, who just want to pretend they’re married.


“Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru: Dai Mankai no Shou” gets the accidental stumble award: Perspective really can color your first impression of media. I watched the first episode of this and was honestly a little impressed because it seemed like some real machiavellian storytelling was on order with PTSD recovering magical girls (it’s anime, I’ll take what I can get) who were ‘drafted’ back into service once the evil thought defeated resurfaced, and they were just getting used to civilian life again! Good premise, and the storytelling referencing past battles and events really enriches my experience by forcing me to put together the pieces of the history- like piecing together a puzzle. I was pretty much on board, but then I learned that this was just the third season of an existing series… A series whose two previous seasons could be summarized succinctly before the first commercial break of the second episode, suggesting a dearth of content. My interest immediately deflated and I will always wonder if I would have enjoyed this series from the beginning.

The ‘one step behind’ footprint is awarded to “86” season 2: If not for production issues pushing the last two episodes back an entire season from now, this likely would have made top three. As is, it was a fun sci-fi diversion about battle hardened teenagers trying to sacrifice themselves to save the world. It is comical how often the characters are reminding each other that they shouldn’t seek out death- like a suicide support group driving spider tanks. The new enemies and their dynamics were fun and I like, overall, the scope of where the story is heading. This is a marathon, not a sprint.


“Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi” gets the ‘best op’ award: Really, this OP is full of life and made me excited for each episode. The series itself, while just mundane enough to prevent me from frothing at the mouth to see it, never made me regret sitting down for an episode. Sweet, fun character dynamics, two different couples with unique challenges, and a tsun-loli that was not annoying to me at all (that itself deserves an award)! Really good stuff for romance junkies.

“Tesla Note” is awarded the ‘omega bad’ jar of formaldehyde: In case you didn’t know, scholars have long debated the exact distinctions between the ‘golden toilet’, ‘waste of time’, and ‘omega bad’ anime awards. Fair enough, it can be nebulous, but let me assure you that this CG abomination most squarely fits into the ‘omega bad’ criterion, trademarked, of course. Look at one scene and embrace the cataracts your eyes hyper develop as a defense mechanism against the off model ‘2002 Newgrounds’ animation so bad that it could only have been birthed amidst a veritable storm of ameture planning, talent mismanagement, and a vacuum of funding/time. Ninjas. Tesla. CG. Trash.


“To Tsuki to Laika to Nosferatu” goes the ‘cactus’ plant; water sold separately- Vampire going to the moon- last time I watched a movie about that (VhD:Bloodlust), there was a bit less moe and a lot more blood… I got through about four episodes before I decided the cold shell of the vampire girl was cracking too slowly to put up with her prickly personality any further, especially when Niceguy Mc’MyOnlySinIsBeingTooPure is bending over backwards to give her the chance he lost by being too admirable or something. It’s a shame because I usually enjoy the non-American take on racism I get from anime as a more realist perspective that feels less preachy, but boring is boring, I’m afraid.


“Best unintentional comedy” plaque is slid across the ice to “Puraore! Pride of Orange”: Two things stuck out to me here in the few episodes I was able to get through: 1: The female ring manager and her male assistant have some strangely good chemistry and were fun to watch, and 2: Hear me out- the CG girls playing hockey can be hilarious when you see it in action. I’m talking meme-worthy moe faces superimposed on CG real life proportioned hockey suits. The jarring proportionality is the stuff of legend and cracked me up every time I saw it; I couldn't believe my eyes. Look it up yourself.


The ‘better than I remembered it’ certificate is for “Sekai Saikou no Ansatsusha, Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei Suru”: Edgy ‘seinen’ manga are usualy code for ‘shounen with boobies’, and I figured this was about the same when I read a couple chapters and dropped it a while back. The anime was far more entertaining, enough such that I wonder if the adaptation was actually masterful compared to its source? While I’m not about to pick the manga back up any time soon, I would welcome another season of this, as the premise and main character are both interesting. Magic guns don’t hurt, either.


“Megaton-kyuu Musashi” gets the ‘Toy commercial’ TV spot: The first few episodes of this were throwback fun with a troublemaker delinquent being harnessed to pilot a special mecha for humankind, and the moves and battles were imaginative, but the ‘sunrise’ art style and fairly thin story didn’t hook me long enough to start caring about the characters, and, like an advertisement, I had fun with the concept until it was replaced by the next glowing light on my screen.


This season’s ‘normie friendly’ award is presented to “Komi-san wa, Komyushou Desu”: As inoffensive as it gets, Komi is the latest exaggerated social anxiety disorder anime served up for our consumption. While labeled as ‘being unable to communicate’, Komi-san seems actually to simply be shy and not want attention, or is embarrassed by the sound of her own voice, as she communicates quite readily throughout the series- as far as I can tell- by physical ques, non-linguistic mouth sounds, and writing. I’ve lost the plot on what appeal there is supposed to be in watching someone struggle with something most people can do easily… I think it is simply a plot device to allow clover head MC to be relevant. It was cute, but not so cute to be a favorite in this genre.


“Takt Op. Destiny” gets a ‘stars and stripes’ T-Shirt: I really wanted to like this, as the premise of road trips harken back to Cowboy Bebop style episodic meandering, doubly so in the American midwest, but nope- not even the flashy action scenes (which got less visually polished as the episodes went on) could keep my interest in the flat main duo of Takt and his manic-pixie-dream-girl-cum-musical-battle-droid. It’s a shame too, as I even liked the ‘conductor’ theme and the other sassy sister girl, but simply felt myself dozing off after a while. So far, the best bet for decent anime set in America seems to be mob stories.


“Muv-Luv Alternative” invoked the ‘ptsd’ award for… me?: Muv-Luv Alternative, when I read the VNs all those years ago, were quite affecting, to put it mildly. Stories that swam around in my head for days, I may never forget the major beats… This adaptation still somehow managed to fail to get my attention- maybe because I already know what was happening, or maybe the pacing, or budget animation, I don’t know, but the fact of the matter is that this, by pedigree, should have been my #1 this season, and I didn’t even finish three episodes. Maybe trauma kept me at bay?


The ‘long road to nowhere’ sign goes to “Sakugan”: A lot to like here: father daughter journey, fun world setting, and some optimistic adventures tucked under a vague ‘where is it’ promised-land type premonition. It even had a great ED, but after about 9 episodes, I tired of the formula, maybe also of Gagumba being too dim for someone his age, and just forgot to finish it. I don’t feel like I missed much, and reports suggest the story didn’t conclude anyhow; sorry for the folks who toughed it out for that…(nomatterwhatyousaaaaaay♪)


“Orange is the new Jojo” goes to you-know-who: While not the most interesting thing that aired this season, it remained a constantly entertaining spectacle, though the viewer is mostly just along for the ride as the powers and fights use such fluid logic as to be rightly unpredictable by the audience. It’s the most Jojo thing since the last season of Jojo, and the female Jojo has roughly zero impact on how things play out, if anyone was wondering.


While probably not all bad shows, I cannot cobble together multiple sentences of interesting things to say about these dregs: Gyakuten Sekai no Denchi Shoujo (too much otaku but alt history was a fair concept), Saihate no Paladin (too much exposition without enough plot momentum), Shinka no Mi: Shiranai Uchi ni Kachigumi Jinsei (too much Zoo and not enough BO jokes), Muteking the Dancing Hero (too much boring; not enough dancing), and Shikizakura (too much CG).


Overall a weaker season with the top three not matching most in the last year if compared side-by-side, and over half the shows dropped. They can’t all be winners. See you in April.

[neflight86]

Another season comes and goes…


3. Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi o Suru: I wanted to give this position to police girls, but my anticipation to watch this each week pushed me over the edge. Well crafted rom-com that leans maybe too much on some wish fulfillment tropes to avoid eye rolls, but the core is very solid, and the couple have (or rather develop) a great chemistry that had me rooting for them by mid season and kept a smile on my face. The great animation and inventive fan service also didn’t hurt.


2. Kimetsu no Yaiba: Yuukaku Hen: Tricky timing, but this did finish airing this quarter. While the majority of this season felt like one big battle, the eggs in that basket made quite an omelet! The hype was real, and UFOTable got to go full ham with its outrageously stylish post processing heavy fight choreography and every episode had some heft. This is typical shounen storytelling elevated by a huge budget and excellent production. If more anime- shounen or otherwise- got this treatment, anime wouldn’t be niche.


1. Shingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season (2022): Not even a question, really. I’ve gushed ad nauseum about the merits of SnK’s storytelling and excellent, thoughtful handling of difficult themes in the past. The divisive arguments in our own dedicated thread is testament to the effectiveness of the moral quandaries. It elevates what I expect out of anime in a good way.

_________________
Quick, some special awards before anyone notices how thin this season was!


The “I regret nothing” award goes to “Hakozume: Kouban Joshi no Gyakushuu”: Almost squeaked into the third place spot, but got usurped by a certain boob bag in the last second. This is the type of show I’m seldom in the mood to watch, but never regret after starting. Two police women giving us a tour (vicariously) of modern, mundane police work. Classic ‘more interesting than entertaining’. What was striking, in hindsight, is that there is some true darkness and a wide shift of tone from case to case. One episode, you get a humorous chase scene with Kawai lamenting that she can’t stop chasing someone when she’s out of breach because people are watching, and a few episodes later, she is dealing with the trauma of responding to an infant fatality in a car wreck. Some of these scenes really stuck in my mind (as did the needlessly attractive female character designs).


The “could have been a contender” marble mouth is presented to “Tokyo 24-ku”: There is probably a great show in here somewhere, but I couldn’t remain interested long enough to find it. Super powers, conspiracy, plucky kids in near-future tech tokyo- in another season, I might have stuck it out, but as-is, I just couldn’t muster the drive, which is too bad as the energy and direction felt spot-on in the few episodes I watched…


The “Unequal Yolk” trophy\cardboard box goes to Dolls’ Frontline: Girls (robots) named after the contemporary and historic firearms they wield against nebulous enemy forces… This outlasted much better shows simply by having disproportionately good OP and ED sequences that kept tricking me into hoping- nay expecting- a good military action show that I never got.


The “no excuse” award is presented to “Cue!”: No reason why I couldn’t finish this. Cute girls doing voice acting. I’m pretty sure I’ve watched at least two other shows with the same premise that were no better than this, so why the drop? I’ll blame it on ‘cute girls’ burn out. Sometimes it’s better to take a break than to keep going and get broken. I should write fortune cookies.


The “morning tea” cup goes to “Genjitsu Shugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki S2”: While not glamorous, it is reassuring when an anime gently, calmly settles unnoticed into your weekly routine as a sort of ‘given’, where you may not be excitedly awaiting or anticipating the next episode, but in the back of your mind you just know you’ll watch it when you get a chance. This is such an unassuming show. Low stakes, just enough plot progression without asking any truly difficult questions to the viewer (at least not framed as such) isekai pseudo-harem. Forgotten as quickly as it was watched, but I’ll probably watch another season in a year or so.


The “Edgelord Commander” Spencer’s gift card is, of course, awarded to “Platinum End”: The dynamic duo behind masterpieces like Death Note and Bakuman have seen better days. I don’t know how they decided that what their death game needed was mega-edgy-energy, but that’s what we got. Almost no levity, and a bunch of sad, suicidal people fighting (and refusing to fight) over the right to steer humanity into salvation, oblivion, or worse. From the beginning, I eagerly kept waiting for the complex storytelling to become captivating, but it never did. The confrontations are messy and unintelligible as the relationships between the angel abilities, physics and the rules that govern them are never organized in a way that is satisfying to the viewer, making each angel power stand off unsatisfying and arbitrary feeling. Then you have the flat philosophical debates about happiness and the rights of suicide that were handled better or at least less cynically) in Babylon (and that wasn’t great, either). I couldn’t finish it and I wanted to like nothing more (except SnK) this season. Ya hate to see it.


The “Creeper” award (no, not the song or minecraft character… unless you mean mining out of a federal penitentiary) is for “Akebi-chan no Sailor Fuku”: Do you appreciate the female body? How about the female body in puberty? Actually, don’t answer that- nothing good can come of it. Joking aside, while this could be an entertaining watch as a strange coming of age story, it’s not one that I would be comfortable admitting to watching after the fact. Enough times I noticed its direction was recognizably fixated on a few potentially sensual angles of the girls… the kind that give anime fans a bad rap… so much so that I just couldn’t go on. I think I prefer my fanservice to be more blatant and crass so it is easier to brush off as a joke.


The “Fall from grace” parachute goes to “Ousama Ranking”: Seldom has an anime maintained a high level of quality for as long as Ousama did (about 10 episodes) before turning heel and devolving into… not what I thought it was. I’ll attribute this to the double edged sword of world building. While, on the one hand, sharing the condition of your universe is fun and exciting; if- after an extended period nothing is done with this information, it becomes capricious and unwelcome. A series that did this well, as an example, was Hunter x Hunter. When details about the world were given, it was always in service to the story and gave richer context to the current events. In Ousama, while it made attempts at this at first, after a while it just felt like the author was trying to justify another sad story in a flashback with characters and entire peoples we would likely never see or hear from again. Perhaps in a future season, if made, some of these things will be cashed in on, but I largely tuned out by the end as we waded through some of the bizarre final battles of the season that led up to some genuinely confusing story directions that did little to satisfy the promise of adventure set by the first few episodes. Unfortunate, but what is there is still worth watching.


The “week old fish” baking soda was sprinkled around for “Slow Loop”: After the initial tension of ‘will the main girl be able to bond with her new sister over fishing and move on from her deceased father?” was defused three episodes in, so too was my desire to keep watching the beating of a dead fish- I wasn't in need of healing enough for this healing show to find appeal.


The “Too cool for school” skateboard is awarded to “Tribe Nine”: If nothing else, this perversion of baseball has more attitude than a Sonic the Hedgehog AMV. ‘Nuff said (but not ‘nuff to remain interesting).


The “paper tissue” of regret is split between Sabikui Bisco and Kaijin Kaihatsubu no Kuroitsu-san: Not bad shows from what I saw, but nothing special, no hook to keep me watching, so for them I shed a small tear of indifference.


“Tensai Ouji no Akaji Kokka Saiseijutsu” gets the store brand coupon: Do I really have room for two fantasy anime about unwilling princes/young kings elevating their respective kingdoms from obscurity to world prominence? Apparently not, because I couldn’t even be bothered to finish this one, which I will say is better produced than the realist hero, but somehow even more prone to ‘perfect MC’ syndrome. If only it had aired in a different season…


The “catfish” profile picture was swiped on “Koroshi Ai”: I should really consider starting to skip first episodes- they tend to give me the wrong impression of shows. Best foot forward and all of that… The John Wick rom-com had a lot going for it, as serviced by the premise, but quickly became less interesting after the mental instability and toxicity of the one sided relationship dynamic was essentially abandoned about three episodes in. Another gripe is that I have an increasing disconnect with how anime/media treat death. When depicting human beings getting killed en masse by singular actors, it kind of reflects sociopathy on the characters more than the battle-hardened characterization I think they were going for unless an actual effort is made to dispel that… Shoot em in da head and move on…


A weaker season for me (I dropped way more than usual due to preference and a work project eating up my evening time), but here’s to the next season!

[Ryllharu]

With fewer words, Winter 2022:

No particular order.

Slow Loop - I usually pass on the scores of "Cute Girls Doing Things Cutely" series because so many of them are very samey and bland. Predominantly (or entirely) cute girls cast does things that are non-stereotypical activities for girls. Woo. -_- Honestly, most of them come off as re-skinned K-ON or Non Non Biyori. Stella C3-bu (Airsoft club) is a good example of how bland and dreadful these are when done poorly.
Not so with Slow Loop. It's a fly fishing anime cute girls on the surface, but a remarkably deep introspective series on a lot of subjects. Exploration of grief, loss, and the corresponding recovery. Acceptance of yourself and your hobbies that seem strange to others (like another series on this list!). Fear of rejection. Forging a new family. How empowering and emotionally stabilizing having a close friend for a long time can be. Conservationist behavior. It's not the cute comedy of the main trio that sells this series. It's the more somber moments. There's male characters in this one too, and they're not just window dressing, they're integral to many of the series' better moments. Yes, the girls are cute and entertaining without ever getting too annoying. But when they quietly contemplate a particular subject, this series really shines. If Yuru Camp held an undertone about appreciating solitude, Slow Loop's instead has the central focus of family, friends, and acceptance of self.

Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi o Suru - Best girl of the season who intensely seems like Manic Pixie Dream Girl but definitely isn't? Touching romance where the driver of the burgeoning romance isn't the beta male lead? An otaku romance where the female lead is anything but shy (there's actually quite a few of these...)? Another coming of age series where a focus is on rejected the reactions of others and readily accepting yourself and your hobbies? Yes Please. The animation (and even mocap) is exceptional, the characters have depth and presence and agency and charm and skill and passion and did I mention the two leads both have agency in an otaku-centric hobby?! I knew there was a lot of hype around this series but it delivers. In full.

Fantasy Bishoujo Juniku Ojisan to - My second sleeper hit on this list. It's isekai. It's a gender bender. It's a parody. It has edgelords. It has obnoxious goddesses. This is, at its heart, a series on co-dependence. Between two men. One of whom has been transformed by a narcissistic arrogant goddess of love into the most simultaneously helpless and enthralling beauty on the entire fantasy world. And they're cursed to fall in love with the other. It's all been done before. But not all in one place and so well done.
On top of some really stellar voice acting, this series firmly plants itself among the titans of comedy-isekai with the likes of Those Who Hunt Elves. It does not take itself seriously. It is full of degenerates, like KonoSuba, but instead of toxic personalities, it is insidious levels of narcissism. The corresponding slow changes in personality is a progression throughout the series. The ending falls a little flat, but that's what happens to series that go for abrupt ends when they catch up to the source material.
Most importantly, it lets its jokes breathe.

[MFauli]

Ousama Ranking
An almost perfect adventure story that, while uplifting overall, doesn't shy away from topicizing and showing the sad and gruesome parts, too. Continues the tradition of "the best anime feature a childish artstyle".

Kimetsu no Yaiba S3
I had my issues with some of its deus-ex-machina moments, but you can't really hate this season. Gorgeous fights, gorgeous animations, and it just makes you want to see more.

Shingeki no Kyojin The (not) Final Season
Do I hate that we have to wait another year or so for another season? Sure. But other than that, this has been an amazing season that really got people talking and is almost impossible to predict. I won't start the discussion again here, but this really is a story without good guys at this point and that makes it so interesting. And better even: There's also no more clear victory for either side in the cards, damage has already been done, it now remains to be seen whether ultimate destruction can be stopped or not. I'm #TeamEren.

Overall another weak season, but I've come to accept that a season with 3 shows I really like is a good season, so that's okay. And I use the additional time to watch older anime I haven't seen.

[neflight86]

That was quick; it felt like I watched much more this season than I honestly did.

A tough season to parse, there were at least six shows in contention for top three, but sometimes you have to go with your gut and arbitrarily make distinctions…


3. Spy x Family: A great show and an exciting prospect as a seasonal delight. The premise is cute, clever, and sweet with a hint of edge to congeal it all together into approachable entertainment. Not every episode slapped as hard as the others, but there were many great moments and the situational jokes usually hit some. Probably the most long term appeal of the season; this is going places.


2. Healer Girl: Even though the music didn’t always work for me, it often did, and the emotional resonance here was the strongest this season. This is the rare instance of a fantastical theme in anime that is actually explored and developed instead of used as a prop and abandoned for more genre pandering schlock three episodes in. I was really able to bond with these girls, and come to care about what befell them on their journey to… professional certification. The ending also was above expectations, and this came off as a quality product that satisfied like no other this season.


1. Kunoichi Tsubaki no Mune no Uchi: I struggled more justifying, in words, why this was my favorite of the season, given some of the other excellent shows on display. Even after mulling it over longer than I really should have, I have settled on the conclusion that this was simply the cutest, most fun thing I looked forward to the most each week. The character designs are adorable, the scenarios always highlighted the girl’s dynamics and were unpredictable and there were even some choreographed fights icing the cake. I can’t give any higher praise.

__________________

Special awards saturation? Take it up with my agent…


Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story gets the “Honorary 4th place” bronze award: To keep it on the level, I’ll still limit the main listings to top three, but turns out the special awards aren’t nearly as regulated, evidence suggests. Another excellent show with all the shounen spirit and bombast that could put a smile on just about any anime watcher’s face. The only things that held this back, after much deliberation, was the central character, Eve, losing much or if not all of her charm as the season went on, and the somewhat rote storytelling. The tough guy/devil-may-care act is cute at first, but if she never develops beyond it, it gets a little stale and may have me rooting for her adversaries at some point. Shounen tropes make up the skeleton of the story, and it’s executed well as could be in one cour, but few risks were taken. Do or die golf spectacle each episode. I was just about ready for a break.


Koi wa Sekai Seifuku no Ato de is awarded the “Honorary 6th place” paper mache trophy: For scenario, characters, and creative story beats, this should have been top 3, but the production just couldn’t keep up and this ended up looking a little rough. Still a high recommendation if you’re in the mood for post-confession romance. Super cute main couple and some great comedic timing and jokes. The supporting cast are really entertaining as well. Aside from the animation (which isn’t that bad), this is a complete package in an unlikely place.


Yuusha, Yamemasu gets the “mascot of the season” furry tail accessory: Taking place after the hero routes the demon lord’s army, the first few episodes are spent garnering sympathy for the opfor and demons/monsters as a whole. It works well enough, but the real highlight that makes this palatable are the generals who come off as earnest and flawed people out of their element. None more so than the beast general Lili being, essentially, a furry loli with a mental age of six. Adorable character design and the most memorable thing about this show for me before it quickly devolves into clumsy lore exposition about the ages long past and ‘human weapons’ teenage angst giving way to eye-rolling platitudes on “living for yourself” I’ve seen in approximately two thousand anime…


Kono Healer, Mendokusai gets the ‘dead horse’ beating stick: The first episode suffered from a gag that went on two scenes too long, but other than that, there was some promise here in a sorta-foul mouthed healer who spits venom and is generally extremely obnoxious to those around her in the most passive aggressive of ways. That's a good setup, but the humor never really evolves from making the same jokes about her partner’s incompetence. Definitely give it an episode or two, but don’t expect to hang around once the corpse begins to stink.


Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road / Gunjou no Fanfare / Shijou Saikyou no Daimaou, Murabito A ni Tensei Suru All share the “amnesia” award, if I'm remembering correctly. Nothing stood out as particularly bad about these (among their genres), but I would be hard pressed to recall any details about the few episodes I watched of these fantasy action shows aimed at a demographic I’ve long since lost touch with.


Tomodachi Game recycles the “waste of time” award: It’s been a couple years since I had to pull out this one, but this was worth it. Shameless manga advertising that doesn’t even adapt the interesting early parts of the manga. What happens when you take the edginess out of edgy teen fiction? Kidnapped students playing games about maybe not trusting their friends while the main character grapples with the moral quandary of valuing money or friends more. It's more on the nose than my glasses. Truly a tale as old as time… going by the animation alone. Some of the setups and ‘gotcha’ moments are clever, but there are literal episodes of mostly uninteresting dialogue before those payoffs. A few parallel storylines or useful hints could save the audience from perceiving the ‘solutions’ themselves as contrived- but no. This could have been really good, and maybe future seasons could be, but stay away for now.


RPG Fudousan is likened to an unsalted potato chip: Airy and has that crunch you expect, but no flavor. Cute girls tackle clients’ real estate requests and become better friends episode by episode. Bog standard healing show. I might have finished it in a weaker season.


The ‘faded memories’ black & white photograph is awarded to Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari Season 2: Never have I fallen out with a show so hard for simply being more of the same. What did I expect? Thinking back, this wasn’t much different from the first season, but I just could not bring myself to enjoy it in its thoroughly mediocre glory.


Heroine Taru Mono! Kiraware Heroine to Naisho no Oshigoto gets the ‘I can’t believe it's not a reverse harem’ shortening substitute: Surprisingly unromantic and simply a well crafted story. It appears to be from an ongoing work, but the story arc(s) are satisfying and leave the show off on a strong note. It took a few episodes for me to warm up to, but once I did it was easy to stick around. No complaints aside from my general reservations about ‘idol culture/worship’; recommended.


Paripi Koumei suberts the ‘expectations’ award to instead get the ‘shoulda seen that coming’ plaque. P.A. Works has made another insultingly inoffensive ensemble story about some good people coming together to do something ultimately mundane. Girl wants to sing, reincarnated Chinese strategist makes it his mission to have her succeed by means of some trickery and exposure tactics. There is a rapper in there and a rock idol group to fill out the poster, I guess. The series ended as she effectively made the halfway point for no discernable reason. Parts were memorable, but none inspiring in the way they wanted to be. For a show where the main girl tried to jump in front of a train, there weren’t many deep character introspection or growth moments, just ‘trust Kongming!’, as if any other plans were on the table, so the story lacked punch. The usual snappy character writing did the job, but essentially no risks were taken and no commentary made. It felt like anime trying to be more like western media. Enjoy the ride or get off.


Gaikotsu Kishi-sama, Tadaima Isekai e Odekake-chuu got the “remember fun” party hat: One of two isekais I finished this season, and the only one-off, Skeleton made an effort to try and keep things simple and fun. Good guys over here, bad guys over there; capice? Do a dance and shoot some spells. All of the basic fantasy trappings were there but took a back seat to Arc’s enthusiasm, and it was almost infectious. The harem was smaller than I figured it would be as well (that’s a good thing, for the record).


Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Ultra Romantic has the “honorary 5th place” award: It looks like the ending… it feels like the ending… but it’s not? Okaaaay, I’ll gladly keep watching, but the story has been written into a corner by now, so how can the central concept be upheld going forward? Still love the humor taking longer setups for appropriate payoff and the cast is still given plenty to do and bounce off of each other well. Never bored watching this.


Kawaii Dake ja Nai Shikimori-san: This fantasy just isn’t for me. The character dynamic was off putting enough to drain any enjoyment I might have gotten out of this. A shame, really.


Honzuki no Gekokujou (S3) gets a pair of reins: A true workhorse, faithfully continuing the story with no frills and no surprises, either from a production or story perspective. The kind of show that I’ll watch if another season comes out, but I’m not clamoring for.

[Buffalobiian]

Honzuki no Gekokujou - Good stuff, a continuation from the previous seasons. Though I have to say, I probably liked this better when it was closer to Spice&Wolf than currently where it's closer to Harry Potter. As such, I really wanted to put Machikado Mazoku S2 in here instead since S2 of that show improved vastly on S1, probably because of more budget. But alas, I did look forward to Honzuki more each week, so that wins.

Deaimon - Healing anime of the season for me. The OP was one of only two OPs that I consistently watched from season to season (the other one being Skeleton Knight / Gaikotsu Kishi-sama, Tadaima Isekai e Odekake-chū). The content was soothing, and overall just good old slife-of-life and people-relationships stuff.

Spy X Family - Funny mashup of weird folks and circumstances. It still feels like an introduction thus far, and I look forward to more.

[Ryllharu]

Spring 2022 (since no one else labeled it yet) - No particular order.

I will put Machikado Mazoku 2-Choume on my list. The first season was fun, but this one is the perfect way to take a 4-koma series and extend it out to a season 2. It avoids the common pitfall of many 4-koma gag series by having an ongoing plot across both seasons, the recurring gags never get stale, and the animation has significantly improved (another rarity!). What it does well is maintain the nice balance between its cute cast and creepy/obnoxious cast in a way that never ends up being grating, the cast narrating all the sound effects amplifies everything about a 4-koma series that often ends up untranslated from Japanese, and of course the antics of the cast are cute and entertaining most of the time, heartwarming when they're not. Lastly, the OST has always been strong, with the best of all being Yuuko's transformation music (also used as the preview song). The humor is primarily in how pathetic the demons are, while still managing their goal of domination and slow freedom from the 400-Yen Per Month curse somehow. Shamiko's undeniable charisma and her fearsome supporting cast.

Birdie Wing - Golf Girls' Story - It's dumb. It's a shonen sports series. It's awesome. It feels like anime from decades ago. And it should. The man behind the series composition worked on Trigun, Mugen no Ryvius, Hachimitsu to Clover II, Gundam 00, Jormungand, and Madlax. It knows how to handle tension and rivalries without getting bogged down in details. It can do drama. It can do humor. It even transitions well into its second arc by resetting the lead to a normal level (mafia golf vs professional golf...that's not a typo). It has good character design. It has a great cast (many Gundam vets like Char's and Amuro's) too. It was ultimately the series I looked forward to the most each week.

Spy x Family - Phenomenal cast (and I mean that very seriously, Anya's VA in particular is doing incredible stuff on this), well animated (two studios both working it to keep up the quality). If you keep in mind that this is primarily a comedy with action, you'll be very pleased. I love the style of this series more than anything. It's a very rare Cold War aesthetic.

[MFauli]

Dance Dance Danseur
At least ONE truly great anime this past season that made me watch it like I was grasping for air while underwater. Really exciting, great animation, the best romance ever ... until it becomes the most fucked up romance ever, LOL. Hoping immensely for a season 2, because this story needs animation. But if I remember this in 2 years or so and still nothing about a continuation, I'll go for the manga. Can't wait to find out how this proceeds.

Kaguya Final Season
Honestly boring start and had to force myself to keep watching, only to find the most amazing couple final episodes. I wish the whole season would have been on that level. It's a true ending and one that I can accept, which is not something most anime manage to achieve. Still, I wouldn't be opposed to a movie that COMPLETELY wraps it up. Coincidentially, I happened to read an h-doujin today featuring their "first time together", and it was pretty much how you'd expect that to happen, lol.

Honzuki Season 3
Honestly, not thaaaaat exciting, bad animation still stifling an otherwise very interesting story, and frustration from how slow the overall story proceeds. Despite the letdowns, I just want know what happens next and I can't wait for season 4. I need moooooore!

The one series I haven't finished watching is Spy X Family, only seen 3 episodes or so, so it might have a shot at kicking out on the others shows. My first impression was positive, although a lot depends on how it develops and ends.

[MFauli]

I will preface my posting with: This was the season of anime where I was glad when I got done with the final episode. Oof. Very mediocre to bad season. If anyone can truly recommend some MUST-SEE, I'm open to hear about those. Anyway, here's my not-so-top Top3:

1.) Summer Time Render
Finale still unaired, but whatever. I had to force myself to watch each episode, because this anime really danced the line of "this is good" and "I'll drop it". Ultimately, curiosity won and it's an okay fantasy-mystery story. Many things I disliked, especially design-wise, but at least this was a show that kept you thinking.

2.) Isekai Meikyuu de Harem o
Ecchi trash, blablah. Despite a shallow premise, this was probably the easiest to watch anime this season. Start an episode, lean back, have fun. That makes it all the more tragic that it had glacial pacing and too much focus on ecchi scenes. If this anime just removed the constant sex scenes (not entirely, but, ya know, it's enough that we know what they're doing, no need to spend 5-10 minutes each week on it) and focused more on the world we're introduced to, this could have been one of the better isekai anime. The way it is, meh. At least I can say the sex scenes were really good, most hentai anime look much worse. Unfortunately I saw one uncensored episode and the studio cannot draw nipples, they looked bad/dumb. Redo of Healer is still nipple master.

3.) Isekai Ojisan
Half of each episode is lost on me because I don't get the repeated joke about the uncle's supposed ugliness. But the other half is fun to watch. Unfortunately, two mishaps: One, the anime got delayed mid-season. Two, no actual story development in the real world, only flashbacks. I really would have liked more present timeline action, especially elf coming to the real world and such. Missed potential.

All in all a bad season. Aoi Ashito is one of the most boring football anime ever. Isekai Yakkyoku is the kind of isekai that gives the genre its bad reputation. And Overlord is so creatively dead, its author must be writing that shit intentionally to get out of a contract or something.

[Ryllharu]

Summer 2022

Ranking them this time so you know that I mean it.

1. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners - If you've watched it, you know why. No need to play the game it is a tie-in to, they're independent. This is brilliance in character study. It is mastery in self-restraint by TRIGGER. It has hands-down, some of the best Japanese performances of the casts' careers. The dub isn't bad either! It's fun when it needs to be, it's not when it shouldn't be. It's everything it needed to be. If I had any criticism for it, it is my own fault because I listened to the game music too much that I'm sick of some of the songs when they're reused in the anime, and some goofy shit toward the end when TRIGGER couldn't resist being themselves. I'm not going to say anything else about it that I haven't detailed in full-spoilers over in the thread.

2. Yofukashi no Uta - The atmosphere and vibe of this series is what sells it. I think it perfectly captures that extremely late-night calm that you only get where there's really nobody around but you and your companions. The entire city (or park, or field) is yours, and yours alone. That brings in that little euphoria of catching a moment/place that is up for grabs, and you got there first...and then it goes for a deep-dive on aromantics, narcissism, connections between people. What behavior is and isn't toxic? Is there a difference between lust, love, affection, companionship, platonic connection, longing, the desire to possess someone as yours, hate? It's very intentionally the lofi beats version of all those things.

3. Lycoris Recoil - It's genki gun-kata. This series, like the other two, are also a great exploration of character. A positive outlook one, where living your own life to the fullest extent you can, satisfying every urge your mind can think of, while also facilitating the same in others. Time is limited, don't waste it on things that don't really satisfy you, don't let anyone else tell you what you have to be, and make sure no one takes away that lust for life from others. All that...while being a really well-crafted action series. It also has some of the best paced setting and character development I've seen in a long time. At least right up until the end when it gets a little squirrely, but in a forgivable way. Details are given without slipping into exposition. They're naturally doled out in conversations where it makes sense. The protagonists and antagonists both act in a manner that subverts casual expectation in the genre, but not in a particularly forced way. There's no 'Gotcha!' type twists, nothing major that wasn't telegraphed episodes earlier. It's meticulously developed narrative and character development.
Does lose a few points from being perfect due to some questionable physics and ability continuity issues. But again, forgivable for most viewers.
It's just really enjoyable, well animated, and good-to-great voice casting.

Notes: Prima Doll was a very slow burn, and ended up pretty good, but as a mixed-media project, doesn't quite get to a satisfying epilogue within the anime. Isekai Ojisan isn't over, so it isn't eligible for this season per the rules.

[neflight86]

As per usual:

3.Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e 2nd Season: This is how you do garbage. Throw our broken characters into edgy silly confrontations with fluid logic and the limpest social commentary for twelve or so episodes, but make it somehow entertaining, and you’ve got a winner. Never bored even when it was boring, and that’s a feat.

2. Lycoris Recoil: A truly well made piece of media that nailed all of the various ranges of ‘fun’ during its runtime. It easily teetered between serious but not so serious with exciting action set pieces and genuinely clever plot elements and twists, to speak nothing of its great delivery of witty dialogue and self referential humor that didn’t lean too heavily on the otaku pandering tropes so common in anime. Some shoehorned cultural elements and an unexciting ending climax dampened my excitement a little, but still an easy recommendation.

1. Shine Post: Even though Covid delays prevented this from finishing as of this writing, I already looked more forward to this than any other show this season by a considerable margin, and cannot imagine the finale flopping hard enough to affect my rankings. Sometimes I just want a happy story, and the unbridled positivity of this idol story won me over, in no small part thanks to its stellar animation. I was strangely captivated throughout the entire run about things I wouldn’t care about if the character animation, voice performances, and overall cuteness hadn’t sold me from the offset. Maybe it just hit at the right time, but Shine Post is the whole package for me this season.

_______________________

Some (dis)honorable mentions are in order!

Shadows House 2nd Season has the “most within expectations” barometer: Exactly what I thought it would be, Shadow’s House plays out consistently, if nothing else. Some light mystery with more moving parts than I can track, this season ends in roughly the same place it began, with a few more ominous stakes introduced. Comfortable, if not compelling.

Cyberpunk Edgerunner gets the ‘superior commercial’ award: While a fine show in its own right, narrowly missing the top three, the real accomplishment of Edgerunner is that it stirred a desire to dive back into the Cyberpunk universe, namely the video game. Even if that isn’t your jam, I’d still recommend this as a great story with the main character being the rich universe itself.

Instead of the golden toilet, Engage Kiss is instead awarded the “silver plunger” in recognition of its efforts to be simply trash. Also home of the worst protagonist this season if not decade, Engage Kiss is so teenage and angsty you can almost smell the Axe body spray. Cool kid throws it all away (his memories) to fight demons and avenge his family no matter what society tells him. The adults around him are useless and corrupt in roughly equal measure and he can only count on his cute waifu trio of catty, possessive girlfriends to aid him in his quest. I’d say I was moved, but that would only be half true, because bowel movements don’t really count. Funny I call Shuu a teenager/kid when he is actually old enough to smoke and drink, but Shuu’s mindset couldn’t be more immature and conforming to the image of what hormonal youths think of themselves as. I can’t connect with that, but it still provided some measure of entertainment wrapped up in the thickest of pretension; a magical concoction worthy of staining the bowl on the way down.

Both Prima Doll/Warau Arsnotoria Sun! failed the ‘filter’ test: After about two episodes each of these strangely parallel ‘cute girls doing post war time reconstruction faffing about with more sinister undertones’ shows, I ran a test on the next few episodes to see if there was anything visually interesting to see, as that resonates with me most. Skipping through a couple episodes each, I found nothing but stills of (cute) talking heads and almost no hints at motion or body expressiveness. Sadly, I just couldn’t muster the interest to press on, but wanted to give them mention as they may be worth seeing for those not put off by endless conversations over cookies and tea.

Made in Abyss: Retsujitsu no Ougonkyou gets the ‘strange stasis’ amber: An anisphere darling for sure, MiA s2 was hotly anticipated by many, myself included. While the introductory episode detailing the precursor expedition team was fascinating, the story quickly swelled into one that struggled to present a core I could latch onto. They were in a city made of people who turned into value in exchange for their humanity, with an angry princess outside, and the village was its mother and wanted it destroyed… It just lost me somewhere along the way and I was taking in what was happening more than following along, really. What is strange is that I don’t begrudge the show for this approach (though the creepy exploitation bits still bother me) and fully expect the next arc, whenever we get that, to be of high quality. I just missed out on the heady themes, I suppose, but my enthusiasm somehow isn’t diminished; an accomplishment in its own right!

Kinsou no Vermeil: Gakeppuchi Majutsushi wa Saikyou no Yakusai to Mahou Sekai o Tsukisusumu gets a blank piece or paper: Not much to say other than this was one of the most boring ecchi series I’ve seen in years before I dropped it; I struggle to even remember anything about the few episodes I watched.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures: Stone Ocean part 2 gets the ‘two towers’ award: Like I detailed in its thread, Jojo has, as of this season, transitioned from an dynamic action adventure to a static institution. Specifically a meme factory. There is no tension as there are no indications that the characters are in any real narrative danger despite the show going out of its way to craft specific horror styled scenarios for the cast to overcome while yelling at each other. Not enough plot progression to satisfy, and leaving off on a transition in setting is the only thing it's got going for it right now. Many shows decline over time, so I shouldn’t be surprised, but it's unfortunate to see Jojo do likewise; hopefully this is just a slump.

Awarding the ‘calories burned’ scale for Mamahaha no Tsurego ga Motokano Datta: An interesting journey, this goes from a Kaguya style ‘make them confess' schemes framework of two youths in love, and quickly transitions focus to other contrived complications in their non relationship (namely their friends with overlapping affections), and finally settles on a character study about love and loss that kept me watching to the very end. Maybe it's that the characters were all pretty cute and likable, but by the end I could root for them all and was glad to be a part of the ride. They put in the effort.

Isekai Meikyuu de Harem o gets no award: A decent enough power fantasy isekai that had me until the awkward and prolonged first sex scene. At that point, I fully realized what audience this was geared for and excused myself. At least there was an attempt at world building, but it is impossible to ignore what this softcore isekai is.

Yofukashi no Uta is awarded the ‘night light’ lamp post: Good vibes and a laid back program that really benefits from its mood and production more than almost any other show this season (MiA also excelled in this). Bored vampires and a dumb kid who wants to be one and end up getting in over his head while still enjoying the night life of a city with apparently a curfew given how few people walk the streets at night. Some more interesting story beats are introduced with some of the characters to shake things up and lead to an ultimately satisfying non-ending.

Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gets the ‘sad face’ drama award: Humor is obviously a personal taste thing, but this just didn’t hit almost at all for the episodes I gave it. The only noteworthy item about this is that the second episode was not aired until later in the season because it featured a politician assassination plot and was pulled after Shinso Abe (previous prime minister) was killed at a rally by a disgruntled assassin within days of its planned air date. ‘Cute girls doing stand up’ (that isn’t rakugo) isn’t a bad idea, but the laughs need to be much more dense than the sit-com line/straight man delivery found here.

Bucchigire! Got the ‘plowed under’ shovel: Nothing wrong here (except the naivete of the main character at times), Bucchigire was a fun, traditional show that simply fell to the wayside as I tired of its rote, simplistic storytelling, but don’t let that dissuade you if you’re jonesing for some shinsengumi action and a rogue’s gallery!

RWBY: Hyousetsu Teikoku can borrow the nostalgia goggles (I need those back!): I made it through the first introductory ‘arc’ of the series as condensed into the first three episodes, but I couldn’t abide by some of the legendary choreographed fights being outright omitted, events being re-organized and quickly lost interest. Sure I’m biased, but those were some great scenes and honestly, take those away and RWBY gets kind of pale for me…

Isekai Yakkyoku/Tensei Kenja no Isekai Life: Daini no Shokugyou o Ete, Sekai Saikyou ni Narimashita get some cherry-scented vape smoke: Similar to the ‘blank sheet earlier’, but without even the advantage of cute girls doing whatever, I couldn’t find much entertainment in these isekais, either. The discussion of Yakkyoku survived on these forums, so maybe there was something here, after all!

Soredemo Ayumu wa Yosetekuru gets detention for excessive teasing: Looks like I had reached critical mass for the teasing works of Yamamoto Souichirou, or at least low effort adaptations of them. The same framework didn’t capture my attention for more than a few episodes, but what I saw wasn’t bad, per say, just flavorless without the fresh premise of Takagi or the great production of Kunoichi.

A pretty solid season, all said and done with some good looking shows I didn’t even give time of day to! On to the next!

*Edit: Summertime Render gets a quick shout out as a very solid show that has a fun and well utilized hook and keeps the twists coming, only barely creaking under its own weight by the final confrontation. An anime I feel would go over well with 'normies' looking for quality entertainment. I wish every season has a show of this caliber.

[neflight86]

Fall 2022

3. Spy x Family: A little weaker than the first season with more meandering episodes and setups that didn’t always land, but we’re talking a drop from 95 to 80% hits, so this was still a big winner. The character dynamics and misunderstandings continue to make me grin each episode. Soon, SxF will need to begin exploring larger arcs or start making some more headway with the main plot to avoid feeling like a full on sit-com.

1/18/2023 edit: Oops, it is now obvious that Blue Lock is not over yet, so shuffle Spy x Family to #2, and Do it Yourself to #3.

2. Blue Lock: So now that I have convinced myself I have some standards when it comes to hot blooded shounen sports anime, I am comfortable saying this was really a treat. Even though the intro-hook went with a death-game vibe and was a bit misleading, it did successfully set the stakes and introduce the spirit of competition we would be marinating in for the rest of the season. The matches were fun and dysfunctional, not focusing on traditional Soccer strategy too much, but on the fantastical and flashy techniques (weapons) each character polished to compete. The twists kept coming and never broke tone, and this adaptation had the cajones to full stop mid-arc, possibly in service to the manga, but I still like that there was no compromise or anime original ending. It’s a good sign when one of the most boring-to me-sports is one of the most entertaining shows this season.

1. Chainsaw Man: Well, looking back at my prediction:

Chainsaw Man: Trailers looked like the animation is going to be top shelf, but aside from that, having read the manga... yes. Everyone will have a unique take, and the shounen story structure is adequate, but what sets CsM apart is that the scenarios and dialogue are uniquely a singular person's twisted vision. It's hard to explain without spoiling anything, but the phrase that comes to mind is "effortless creativity for the sake of it". You won't be sticking around for the flashy choreographed fights; if those are good, its because the studio overhauled them. It will be for the characters and interactions; this is actually seinen. Sex, violence, and cynicism that somehow doesn't come off as edgy is how I remember it. I fully expect people will be talking about this years from now.

I can safely say that broadly covers the appeal; this was effortlessly entertaining to watch each week with some stellar production, and the thing I looked forward to most.

__________________________________
But that's not all that's worth mentioning... Perhaps special awards are in order?


Both Noumin Kanren no Skill Bakka Agetetara Naze ka Tsuyoku Natta/ Yuusha Party o Tsuihou Sareta Beast Tamer, Saikyoushu no Nekomimi Shoujo to Deau get the ‘pubescent acne swab’ in their bathrooms. Low effort escapism isekai/fantasy is difficult to like. Not only because the stories are vapid and formulaic to anyone with a functioning frontal lobe, but because, with a little self awareness, you begin to realize what it means… what it says about you… to enjoy this sort of story unironically. It could mean you crave an escape from a world you cannot control into one where magic is an incantation away, where girls are easily impressed, and where the bad guys stand on their side of the line, presenting you with something to fight. It suggests a gaping hole in your life where true fulfillment has never (yet) rested. It casts light upon a childlike desire to keep things as they were- straightforward, detached from society, and fiscally carefree. I’m just too old (and fat) to sustain myself on a meager happy meal… I need tension, character flaws, actual drama… protein!


Kidou Senshi Gundam: Suisei no Majo gets the ‘yuri-bait’ hook placard: I was hoping for some modern Gundam to get into ever sice Thunderbolt (even if I had to settle for the high school setting), but three episodes in, we have some thinly veiled yuri shenanigans and a tropey cast of supporting characters looking lined up to inject their respective arcs into the story as time passes. Good animation, but the lackluster fight choreography and ‘pew-pew’ lasers glazed my eyes over pretty quickly, not to mention the main character has the kind of social awkwardness that can be hard to watch for long periods. Impressive, but unimpressed. I couldn’t make it through Iron Blooded Orphans, and it’s story was much better than this had been when I dropped it.


Shinmai Renkinjutsushi no Tenpo Keiei gets the ‘first dollar of profit’ award to hang on her wall: While I didn’t finish this one out, what I did watch was fun and interestingly never veered too far off of exploring business concepts like the obligation of professionals to charge for services rendered, supply chains, and other introductory economic elements that gave me just the slightest Spice and Wolf tingles. This might be one to go back to.


Do It Yourself!! Made its own award out of reclaimed isekai light novel charcoal: Pine Jam may never be a top tier studio, if the rough look of their fourth main work (this) is anything to go by, but I would argue most of their stuff is worth checking out. This quirky HGTV animated spin off barely missed top 3 for me and always captured the frilly mood just right as if it were plucking clouds from its water-colored sky and resting its episodes upon them. Nothing deep or personal is explored here, but the feelings of companionship, pride in a job well (self) done, and even longing (with a side of spicy tsun) are captured expertly by our group of cute girls doing this particular niche hobby-thing. Recommended. Also wins the best OP of the season, setting its own tone before each episode.


The latest veiled ‘shame’ award is regretfully given to Mob Psycho 100 S3: While the tension in the ‘Dimple as a god arc’ was interesting, the following episodes spent time with some characters who got some nice development, but I never formed any kind of bond with… It was awkward to be plunged into more feel-good stick figure sakuga, and I lost interest. To be clear, this kind of restful, uneventful post climax content to wrap the series up is exactly in concert with the tone of the show…. It just didn’t hit me like I hoped it would. I’ll surely circle back around sometime.


I must present Akiba Maid Sensou with both the “Best Ending” buttress and the “paper bag of disguise”; you’re not fooling anyone: Seriously, swap ‘maid’ for ‘yakuza’ and this is a serious drama, but because it never drops the silly maid culture tropes like lovey-dovey cafe names and plays the entire story pretty much serious, you get to experience a weird shift where you go from laughing at the murder dancing to being somewhat invested in the crime drama about a little girl out of her element in a big way. Coarse, sometimes funny, and always entertaining, Maid Wars brought it hard… hard boiled! Another solid series from PA works.


Akuyaku Reijou nano de Last Boss o Katte Mimashita gets a simple plushy: I kept watching this for more episodes than I had any right to due to how well it was written and how cute to ingest. Shoujo fantasy isekai where the emphasis is on winning the male lead’s heart is really not my genre, but the arcs I watched managed to keep my interest until the mid-season fatigue had me drifting away.


JoJo Stone Ocean Part 3 gets the ‘DMV’ trophy immortalizing what a massive waste of time it was. Jojo has certainly been stretched thin over the last part or two in that the stand powers are just getting more and more ridiculous and esoteric in their premises. Being supernatural is the only justification there is for how nonsensical these things have wound up being. Out of the prison, the cast finally tries to settle the score with the big bad at Cape Canaveral while battling more goons of the week. I’ve said it before and it has finally become true here: you can be weird, crass, juvenile, and disjointed, but you can’t be boring. The confrontations themselves had been passable on spectacle alone until now, but the powers were mostly meta conceptual in nature and I can’t even follow what is going on anymore because the story is so strained to escalate. Why is a spoon in a hole transporting Joylene into the memory of an airplane? What does gravity have to do with reaching heaven? Cap it off with a eons heat-death time loop joke from Futurama? Thanks, but I’m good.


Bocchi the Rock! Gets a cute little pudding jar for being so cute: What a well produced little show! ‘Cute girls doing a band’ is familiar enough to write this off at a glance, but there is actual craftsmanship all over here that’s worth a watch, especially in the little animation flourishes that pepper each episode. Crippling social awkwardness is getting harder to relate to- even theoretically- as I get older and more comfortable around people, but Bocchi stops just shy of being grating in her fear. The rest of the cast bounces off of her great as well, and the music is enjoyable enough. Not my genre as of late, but I don’t regret a single second of what I watched of this.


The ‘just add water’ packet is for Shinobi no Ittoki: This show will rock nobody’s world, but credit where it is due, Ittoki manages to tell a competent, full, self contained story in twelve episodes without being a spinoff, teasing another season, and maintaining a core narrative and definitive ending (plus a post time skip epilogue). Is that even legal in modern anime? It's a grey area... Ittoki is squarely a self contained mini series of adequate quality. Story of a non-ninja being forced to suddenly become the hokag… er chief of his hidden ninja village and navigate some twisty intrigue with rival ninja factions. We have world building, meaningful character deaths and an overall positive tone (and some character designs that grew on me) all in one bowl of twelve episodes. I also like that Ittoki never actually gained any amazing ninja powers from his superior bloodline/talent or whatever, and had to solve the majority of his issues with the strength of his character. Yeah, the broth’s a little thin, but dig in!


Fuufu Ijou, Koibito Miman gets prescription psychotropic drugs: Essentially a fanservice and innuendo vehicle that may as well been adapted from the source manga by an AI, as it has a very noticeable level of clumsiness when switching between tones and moods. You’ll get uber jarring, schizophrenic transitions to and from salacious and everything else often enough that it becomes funny if you start to track it intentionally. The colors were pretty, and the manga was a nice read, but as anime, it didn’t provide enough entertainment to justify the time.


Renai Flops may well have gotten a (passive aggressive) award for the few episodes I perused if I could remember a single flippin’ thing about it!


Yama no Susume: Next Summit tests out the ‘too big an appetizer’ mix plate for being too fulfilling in its first arc. I felt I had the entire breadth of its experience by the time it was over. A mere two episodes in, the first mountain had been ‘climbed’ and the experience bitterly flavored by the main character’s failure and resolution to do better next time after grappling with the futility of this sport/hobby. It was great… so great I didn’t fathom it becoming any more entertaining from there and dropped off watching. I was full before the meal arrived!


4-nin wa Sorezore Uso o Tsuku gets the ‘marco! polo!’ award for being so… blindingly… close: As a comedy series, the setup is standard as Anime gets: 4 Girls, one is an alien militant with no common sense, one a girly ninja, one a psychic, and the last actually a dude. The work done with this setup itself is good… some of the time, great rarely, and poor a fair amount of time as well. Probably the show I hoped to like the most this season, “The lies we tell” is good enough most of the time. It is funny enough most of the time, but treading water like that means a single poor scene can sink the whole thing. Sadly, as early as episode 2, segments with little humor payoff drag on and kill the little momentum this show has. Give it a try, but be prepared for peaks and valleys.

Another fine season to end the year with.

[MFauli]

Fall 2022 Top 3:

1. Fumetsu no Anata e S2

2. Chainsaw Man

3. Mob Psycho 100 Final Season

I'll make it short this time; boring season without anything too hype. Chainsaw Man has me interested for more, Mob got a decent ending. Fumetsu keeps me alive.

[Ryllharu]

Took me a while to finally finish everything.

Fall 2022

Bocchi the Rock! - Hands down my favorite of the season, but also my anime of the year. It's finally getting a lot of the attention it deserved with relentless memes as everyone else started to catch up, but I also picked it up as a mid-season trial myself. Bocchi the Rock is music anime done right. It's also a slice of life/coming of age type of story, while focusing on a very realistic representation of severe social anxiety in its lead. It's incredibly funny, extraordinarily acted and animated, and a perfect example of an adaptation exceeding the source material. This is what anime can be when the medium is at its best. It's touching, it's funny, and in my complete astonishment, managed to get better with every single episode, each topping the last.

Akuyaku Reijou nanode Last Boss wo Kattemimashita - A beautifully and self-contained three-arc Villainess series. The lead has charisma bursting out of every action and line, the story understands moderation and most-importantly, knows when to end (very rare in what series get adapted these days). The animation is a little plain, but it does what it needs to. The action is surprisingly above-average as villainess series go, and I just really enjoyed this from start to finish.

(tie)
Yes, tie. I couldn't pick.
Koukyuu no Karasu
A series that I honestly didn't know I needed. Chinese Court-era supernatural mystery was like a breath of fresh air in a sea of isekai and overblown edgelord series. The leads are both intelligent and terrifying in their own ways, the mysteries are grounded, painful, and tragic. The female lead is simultaneously prickly and charming, hiding why she keeps everyone at arms-length even though she deeply desires human connections. The male lead is cunning, strategic, but also has doubts he is reluctant to share with only his most trusted companions. In the overall mystery, you never really know what's going on or who can be trusted. It also handles true supernatural power nicely and balanced.
The flaws on this one is that the anime apparently only gets through 2 of 7 volumes of the novel, so it leaves a fair amount hanging. Also has the worst OP in the last decade. The character designs are wonderful and used well, even if the animation isn't that crisp.
On the positive side, this had my favorite ED of the season (full version of the song), possibly the year.

Mobile Suit Gundam - The Witch from Mercury - Contrary to the usual opinions, this is a good Gundam series. We don't get to know everything going on and we're very obviously not intended to. The first cour of this is a very intimate and inexorable run-up into a massive corporate hot-war. Our perspective is limited, the focus on key persons in the political strata the series set up, but they don't get to know everything going on. They get hit with events cold, but they are remarkably not passive players like so many other recent mecha. Yes, some feel like chess-pieces being moved from the true actors in the shadows, but they have their own individual goals and we get the slow-motion tragedy as they are pulled into the inevitable despite their best efforts to evade the political bullshit getting thrown their way.

It's a more emotional and sympathetic viewpoint on a ramp-up to war because it is meant to be one. No, it isn't PMC war-war-war right from the start. It was never meant to be. Gundam is an anti-war franchise, always has been.

The animation is top-tier. The mecha designs are great, they move and feel massive like mecha should when shown at the correct perspective, the character animation has subtle wonderful details, and the voice acting is phenomenal.

[neflight86]

Winter 2023

Here we go again!


3. Mou Ippon! The highest compliment I can give is that this is also the ugliest show I finished this season, and I was frothing for more. Shounen sports (even when performed by JKs) are a comfort food for me, requiring only the barest of storytelling competency to keep me engaged, but I would argue the writing here goes above that admittedly low barrier with fun group dynamics, technical fights, and good pacing. Ending after a resounding defeat, and I don’t hear any murmurings of another season, I’ll probably pick up the manga.


2. Blue Lock: Pure uncut black-tar Japanese hype. Nothing demanded my attention more each week than the constantly evolving shenanigans of Blue Lock. Soccer is aggressively boring to me, but as a skeleton for shounen sports, give me more, please. Crazy powers bouncing off of each other in creative ways never fails to entertain.


1. Attack on Titan S4 part 3a: Ignoring the tiresome naming at this point, while Blue Lock had me the most hyped each week, this sole episode of AoT stayed with me for days. Such beautiful storytelling; I lost sleep thinking about the events transpiring as well as Hanji’s death. I need Attack on Titan to be over so I can get over Attack on Titan.

_______________________________________

Pre-Paid Special Awards? Well, might as well not waste ‘em…


Revenger wins the ‘dumbest action element’ dunce cap: Anime asks a lot of us with some of its action set pieces, and usually I can suspend my disbelief (or perhaps logical reasoning) for the lulz, but Revenger has pushed the insult too far. One character ‘fights’ by sticking literal gold foil paper onto people’s faces covering their nose and mouth, resulting in suffocation. This happens multiple times throughout the series, but not once does anyone ever attempt to remove said obstruction, opting to instead flail their blade wielding hands around in desperation until suffocating seconds later when it is shown multiple times that a light touch dissipates the foil into dust. Absolutely touched.


Trigun Stampede implores me to re-bury the ‘90’s time capsule’: A formative anime, for sure, being one of the first I ever watched and still one of the better examples of a western in anime, I had pretty high hopes for this reboot/remake from studio Orange. While Stampede got off to a fair start aping some of the early arcs of Trigun, around the Land Crawler arc, and two episodes deep of doing nothing with Wolfwood I got too bored of the anime cliches and uninspired writing to continue. This one shoulda stayed in the 90’s.


The ‘roller coaster of quality’ got its picture taken with Spy Kyoushitsu: This anime did a rare thing. It had a strong first arc, began to fumble in its middle section, and actually pulled itself back up to a favorable conclusion for the last trimester. Most anime that falter do so hard, but Spy Classroom skillfully treaded water long enough for help to arrive, so to speak. Fluffy, soggy, and recommended.


Benriya Saitou-san, Isekai ni Iku Has broken physics by being, effectively, more than the sum of its parts. What starts out as a gag-driven isekai about the utility of modern know-how applied to a d&d fantasy world becomes, by the end, a mostly successful mixture of character drama, action spectacle, and some phallic jokes to round it out. The typically throwaway supporting cast is actually put to good use over some action arcs and Morlock specifically gets a well fleshed out character arc- the wizard almost never gets a character arc- making the world feel alive and in motion well before Saitou graces it with his presence. Recommended if you like your isekai without a side helping of self insert power fantasy.


Hyouken no Majutsushi ga Sekai o Suberu gets the ‘best impression of a dyed in the wool racist’ sheet set. Boring wish fulfillment fantasy about the best swordsman evaaar getting reincarnated as a prodigy student so he can clown on his peers with both mental and physical prowess, if you didn’t know. Absolute trash, but the obligatory omega prejudiced foil kid in the class got a smirk out of me by just how much incel rage was channeled into his under breath screeches of “ORDINARRRY!!!”, an insult to non-nobles in the show, as he grit his teeth and clenched his fists in response to Ray’s… existence? Whatever, it was funny and more memorable than anything else that happened in this show. Point is, that angry kid scooped this, ever so briefly, out of the golden toilet bowl, where it belongs.


The ‘seediest anime’ packet goes to Isekai Nonbiri Nouka: More isekai crap about farming and the ambitiously comprehensive harem that comes with such a noble task, though the anime goes to strange lengths to sidestep just how much thirst resides in this hidden valley... While enjoyable enough during the opening episodes, there isn’t enough tension to offset the ever bloating cast of smiling girls and endless narration of playing Harvest Moon with cheats on. I died on the vine.


Ningen Fushin and Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei both got in a competition for ‘saddest, most aggressively mean spirited betrayal’ award, and… both of them lost. Shield Hero ruined it for everybody. Both spend their first episode detailing how unjustly the people around themselves scheme to undermine the characters and it works because the Japanese cultural mindset is ‘don’t make a fuss or trouble anyone else; accept slander with grace’. Neither held my attention beyond that due to the fantasy tropes draining my interest after the hook of betrayal is spent and there were no developed characters to keep my peepers on, but the format was striking in its similarity, so I thought it worth a mention.


Buddy Daddies will be getting a bill from my doctor for its tonal whiplash: What screams ‘adorable family bonding’ quite like ‘contracted murder’? As a joke it could work, but Buddy Daddies takes its premise completely seriously while trying to maintain a light tone and banter of killers adopting a child (who’s parents they unknowingly kill in the first episode during an action set piece). Imagine John Wick with a laugh track and it’ll save me a few words. Pass.


Dwayne Johnson will be providing the ‘giant eyebrow raise’ for Inu ni Nattara Suki na Hito ni Hirowareta: This show is a bad look in just about every way that matters: It is a fetish tour de force animated in powerpoint, awkwardly censored, poorly adapted from the gorgeous, if equally repulsive manga, and no one who watched it should admit to doing so. That said, I’ve seen worse. Boy is transformed into a little dog who is adopted by his crush, and his crush likes him as a dog… a little aggressively. Need I say more? I can’t complain too much when it never forgot to put entertainment first, remained perversely creative, and clocked in episodes that, for how vapid they were, always felt short.


Ars no Kyojuu is awarded the ‘I can’t believe it’s not a video game adaptation’ joystick: More so than the two actual shows based on video games this season (Nier and The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki – Northern War), Ars no Kyojuu had the opening story beats of a JRPG down pat, in my opinion. The varied cast cobbled together felt rag-tag in that good old way. While I didn’t get very far in, those hankering for a RGP style story without the time commitment might want to give it a look.


Dabi from Boku no Hero S6 gets the ‘Spencers tshirt’ of shame for being… just so cringe…: Boku no Hero has had its ups and downs, but this season was probably, for being the most action packed, the most boring as well. The first 10 or so episodes covered a giant two front war between heroes and their organized opposition with a huge villain power up and lasting repercussions, but I think this storytelling is done no favors by the weekly format as the themes and ideas it dives into don’t translate well episode to episode, and dilute their impact a lot without a strong emotional core to tie it all together, and that role was served by a dying villain- It’s not a good sign when the villains’ motivations and speeches are more interesting than the conflicts of your heroes during a war arc. Except for Dabi. What a trash character. His ‘reveal’ was so hamfisted it’s no longer kosher and the baggage it brought to Endeavour’s family/redemption arc only muddies the entire side story and makes it waste more valuable screen time watching Endeavour’s rebooting face. It doesn’t help that his edginess is given top billing and waaaay too much focus for such an embarrassing character; the production staff must really think kids like to see him… The only good thing about Dabi is that he makes Vigilante Deku seem slightly less forced and superfluous by comparison alone. I will say that the Bakugo apology was a highlight of this season, though. Maybe I’m just burnt out on superheroes? This is still a pretty good show.


Ooyuki Umi no Kaina gets the ‘dreamcast demo disk’ sleeve: Kaina might be a great little show, but I’ll never find out because it looks too much like how I remember CG anime looking back when it was a running joke: plainly textured, poorly rigged and stiffly animated. Some good world building and the potential for an ‘end of the world’ type story might be worth a look if you’re blind. Kind of slow but also ponderative, it was just too ugly for me to trek on. Maybe I’ll wait for the not-game-of-the-year edition to go on sale and try it again.


Rougo ni Sonaete Isekai de 8-manmai no Kinka o Tamemasu gets the ‘remission’ diagnosis: My favorite part of watching most seasonal isekais are coming up with new ways to insult their creatively bankrupt premises and cynical, posturing lead characters that are, by extension, an insult to the audience. Barking at the machine, if you will. Decent isekai is a rare treat for me. Rougo almost fooled me for a minute by having some solid world building details and a gun safety PSA detailed along side the fluffy isekai trimmings of uplifting a medieval fantasy world, suggesting this story might just beat its own quirky path, buuut… old habits die hard, and the smart writing soon gave way to protagonist power creep and nonsensical expansion without any appropriate opposition or tension, landing this squarely back into the ‘been there, seen that’ camp of disposable isekai we get each season, notifying next of kin. Isekai truly is terminal.


High Card gets the ‘Lime Slurpee cup’ on discount: With an above average first episode, High Card starts off strong, setting itself up as another superpower death game. It’s a polished first episode, but as the ice begins to melt it gets watered down in the following episodes to focus more on some character drama between the two leads (who the show’s marketing would have you believe are only some of the leading cast; but it’s mostly about them) on episodic escapades. While never downright boring, the spark of energy is lost in favor of some origin stories and factional politics that aren’t nearly as engaging as the few battles we got (boilerplate as they were). They may have sacrificed some momentum to foundation for a future season, and we’ll see if it pays off.


Tondemo Skill de Isekai Hourou Meshi gets a 3 star amazon review summarized as ‘laziest isekai power yet’: Food porn can be done really well, as past seasons have shown, but something about MC mostly cooking for a pompous wolf familiar gets old fast. I was much more invested during the early episodes when he had an entire party reveling in his sugar and preservative laden dishes, but the excitement died down shortly before the killing blow of 'training magic by fighting in a fantasy dungeon with half baked combat scenarios' (see what I did there?) killed what remained of the pacing built so far. Probably the most well animated show I dropped this season.


Tomo-chan wa Onnanoko! wears the ‘4th place’ medal: Narrowly missing the top three, Tomo-chan was a delight to watch, if not super gripping, and elevated the source material into something special. Light as it is, I expect this will be a good comedy for novice romance/love-junkies as it tells a complete story of Tomo escaping the literal bro-zone and is paced really well with jokes that don’t over focus on Tomo’s masculinity to the point of getting tired. It may not set the world on fire, but it left an ember I'll carry on.


This season’s theme, to put it into a word, was ‘thoughtfulness’. Many scripts had more detail and care than I expected put into them and felt like the story structure, as a whole, was considered (more often) before writing as opposed to flying by the seat of our pants. See you next season!

[neflight86]

Three months goes by in a flash… a better season than I expected with some good surprises.


3. Jigokuraku: Although its steam let out as the run continued, the action and teasing of lore carried me though, hoping for a genre defining adventure series until about the halfway point where I gave up on that notion. Still fun, and my favorite OP this season.


2. My Home Hero: A sad reminder that very few anime are the complete package of writing and production. MHH was ugly. Sound, acting and story structure were fine, gripping even, but it may have been better suited to be an audio drama, because the severe corner cutting on screen was distracting to watch after a while. Still though, a great cat and mouse, and worth a watch if you want some decent thriller in your anime.


1. Oshi no Ko: Okay, so some can have it all. While I was put off by my foray into the manga, the feature length prologue episode brought all of the strong storytelling to bear and had me absorbed from the outset. What could easily feel like filler or side arcs in lesser shows deftly kept my full attention and kept working toward expanding the meaningful cast and never forgot to remain entertaining among the sea of cynicism. I looked forward to nothing more each week.

___________________________

I know someone out there likes special awards!


Yuusha ga Shinda! Gets the ‘dollar store Konosuba brand’ label: Ever since the venerable Konosuba aired, pretenders have cropped up periodically to make light of fantasy and isekai tropes irreverently. Few have succeeded, and this is the latest dropout to add to the pile. While the opening episode(s) had some sparks of (comedic) life, Yuusha quickly ran out of good ideas and began to wallow in some inept story lines devoid of fun or intrigue. The search continues.


Tengoku Daimakyou explores the ‘chilli’n in the apocalypse’ award: A dark horse where the sky’s the limit, and arguably the best positioned show going into its next season, whenever that is. Really good animation lifted the frankly retro character designs to a joy to watch, even if the characters depicted were unpleasant half the time. The two parallel stories worked well, though each one had slower points and the two rarely lined up to create a boring episode, which kept it engaging while wading through the earlier, episodic parts. I easily have the highest hopes for this going forward, and hope that it can continue to be effortlessly interesting… and maybe a little less horny?


Isekai de Cheat Skill o Te ni Shita Ore wa, Genjitsu Sekai o mo Musou Suru: Level Up wa Jinsei o Kaeta gets a C&D letter from Kirito for taking his Gary Stu thunder: Seldom does a story so transparently bend over so far to worship its own main character and shower them with blessings eternal as this does. Fat kid is miserable and bullied because everyone else is attractive, apparently, and isekais to another world to get ripped and invited to an academy of beautiful young people… I can’t. No offense, but this show burns entirely too many calories on its wish fulfillment to even begin to take it seriously. The meta commentary on how broken and miserable the author must be is leaps and bounds more interesting than anything happening in this show.


The Spencer’s gift card is awarded to “Dead Mount Death Play”: While I couldn't bring myself to finish this season, what was there tread familiar feeling ground as an edgy action series. A reverse isekai where the ‘demon lord’ is a fish out of water with the modern japanese criminal underbelly and its superheroes. The story feels forced and its compenents cobbled together, but more importantly, answers were teased without any accompanying satisfaction to tide me over. Maybe I’ll give it another go if another season is announced.


X&Y gets a novelty nod: Escape rooms can be fun to play, but how about as a spectator? That question’s answer may well directly correlate with how much one can enjoy X&Y. There is an underlying mystery going on, but the escape rooms themselves have been dumbed down to fit along with their solutions in short form episodes that didn’t quite satisfy. Still, a worthy experiment from some non-Japanese anime that I hope we continue getting.


Kaminaki Sekai no Kamisama Katsudou gets a stick of laffy taffy: Isekai into a world without spirituality of any form goes against my basic perceptions of reality (I believe man is inherently spiritual and will find something to worship even without formal guidance) and some fanservice jokes. I did enjoy the first episode, but again lacked any hook, and the buzz around this is anything but positive.


Dr. Stone: New World / Mashle / Rokudou no Onna-tachi: Manga all have the “manga shame” tokoban: Three really entertaining shows… that I barely watched because I had already read the source mangas. Feels bad, man. Don’t let that stop me from recommending them to you (Rokudou is ugly as sin, though)!


Kimetsu no Yaiba: Katanakaji no Sato Hen gets the pre-scraped barrel bottom: For Kimetsu to not even place speaks to how weak this arc was. It was so underwhelming, that I kept expecting some late twist to undo the mediocre fights and boring characterization that preceded it, as a course correction if nothing else. Nope. Just more sword cutt-y and trash talk-y with characters I don’t care about. You’ve seen it, so I don’t need to expand on what felt off about this season. Hopefully all of the bad in Demon Slayer is concentrated here so the rest of the series can flourish.


Isekai One Turn Kill Nee-san: Ane Douhan no Isekai Seikatsu Hajimemashita brought its own label, and it’s no liar: Bro-con isekai. Nothing more, and nothing less. Entertaining until the novelty of the degeneracy wears off.


Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story (2nd half) gets a safety helmet for its own good: Nothing else this season has managed to be so effortlessly stupid and earnestly insulting to the sport it both apes and fetishizes in equal measure. Trash, but somehow does not reach the heights of trash that the first season did due to some fumbling of an appropriately bad soap opera drama and rushed ending where they obviously ran out of room for ability scaling an arc too early.


Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu gets the handkerchief of cuteness: Narrowly missing top billing, this was way more entertaining than I gave it initial credit for. Forget the synopsys; it lies. This is a feel good rom-com about a boy who is the object of affection for a girl who is out of his league physically, but mentally, she is a bit of a dope. Nothing new, buy very cute stuff and a little pervy at times, if that is your thing.


Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers was unplugged from the matrix early: I suspect this was eventually revealed to be a simulation, but not having finished it I may never know. A strange fusion of Pro-otaku energy and Studio Trigger style animation without a Studio Trigger budget. Curious, but forgettable.


Megami no Cafe Terrace gets the MSG shaker: Something must have been added to artificially make this much more agreeable than it should have been. Maybe I was in the mood for a traditional harem, but Megami just got off on the right foot somehow and stayed there. It’s not great, but I was never bored or annoyed, and that plus cute girls carried me through the entire season. Strange enough, a character design choice of note is that all of the girls seem to have the exact same body (demonstrated aptly by the OP) which should have been a bigger detraction, but the constant friction and melodrama somehow kept me from giving it too much thought during each episode.


The Marginal Service gets the “Hypnosis Rap Battle” disclaimer: One episode. No more, no less, else the dosage is off resulting in a headache. Trash talking (non)buddy cops with attitude, ugly action, aliens, and a surprising disregard for its own story. Just a bit for laughs, then stop.


Yamada-kun to Lv999 no Koi o Suru / Skip to Loafer / Otonari ni Ginga / Kanojo ga Koushaku-tei ni Itta Riyuu / Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia / Alice Gear Aegis Expansion all share the “wanted to like” participation trophy: All fair shows lacking a hook to keep me interested. None of these made it past three episodes. Squarely watchable if not at all compelling.


Onward, to the stacked summer lineup!

[Ryllharu]

Spring 2023

No particular order.

Skip to Loafer - Cozy vibe is the king here. The main character looks derpy compared to the rest of the cast, but once you get past that, you get a detailed, earnest, and natural feeling coming of age story about high schoolers who are far more than just character archetypes and personality quirks. Motivations change, personal goals are interrupted, derailed, challenged. At its heart, it is a series about a naturally developed friend circle and multifaceted people who end up feeling very real. Pleasant and with an overall theme of rolling with life's hiccups, having an open mind about others you associate with and not letting your expectations make demands of their personalities, and stressing out that tiny bit less about things you can't control to move foward in your life.
Stellar voice performances too, outside the actors normal anime ranges in many cases.
A series I really needed at this point with all the shit I had going on in real life.

Oshi no Ko - Flawless execution of a theatrical length first episode. But beyond the essentially perfect first episode, an anime adaptation that really builds on the source material. Does it live up to its hype? Yes.

Kanojo ga Koushaku-tei ni Itta Riyuu (Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion) - I let this one stew for a while because I was watching so many series this season, but I'm very glad I didn't drop it. The animation isn't good, but the series more than makes up for it with the voice cast and the character interactions. A josei isekai where the transmigrator isn't the heroine or villainess, she's the murder victim of the narrative she is pushed into. While thematically similar to the tragically slain villainess series, it ends up being structurally different because she is immediately breaking the narrative to ensure her survival, and moreover, her character is not helpless or overpowered, simply pretty normal for a swords, magic, and guns type of setting.
What sets the series apart and lands it in my top three is the voice acting and the character banter. Raeliana and the Duke are both charismatic personalities trying to one-up each other in their business relationship budding into affection. They both have a good range of emotion and very deftly play against each other. The light verbal gags land, the snappy dialogue plays well, and the repercussions of what Raeliana did to the narrative in the interest of self-preservation slowly tease themselves out. More of a drama than a comedy to contrast it to Akuyaku Reijou Last Boss.


Honorable mention for two split-cours that left their narratives wide open so I don't want to count them. But at least one highlight about them:
Mahoutsukai no Yome S2 - Incredibly unnerving musical score really set the atmosphere.
Dead Mount Death Play - Honestly just really fun and had my favorite ED.

[neflight86]

Summer 2023

I really fell off the wagon this season. I barely finished anything this season outside of the top 3, and that is due to a combination of busyness and… apathy; this wasn't a great season for my tastes.


3. Ao no Orchestra: As to my point above, my number three I didn’t even finish. Orchestra is the latest in the ‘tortured genius artist’ genre I’m so fond of in anime. The struggle is real when someone who has great talent/skill is separated from that thing (violin) by trauma, in this case a philandering dad, and swears to never get involved with it again which invariably serves as the springboard conflict when a scrappy novice demands that they return to the fold. It was as formulaic as you expect, but had a strong start, and remains entertaining. The issue lies with the author introducing an entire subset of ‘on the way out’ 3rd year characters who each got screen time like main cast and multiple arcs in between major performances (the big events that create shared tension) that couldn’t keep up the momentum of the main story. It stalled out and I lost interest. Still recommended, though the CG portions can be pretty rough.

**edit: Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru should have been the number 3 if I'd realized it ended this season. It had ambitious world building, characters were given great development and the stories tying them together worked well. Clumsy at times, I could feel the heart in this one.

2. Undead Girl Murder Farce: Essentially a toss up between the top 2, Farce was a delightful mystery series when it could bring itself to focus on the detective work. As others have said, the main trio has a great chemistry, and there were some good deductions but the process itself didn’t lend well to weekly viewing. When a complex series of events is investigated and pieced together over 3-4 weeks, details are going to be lost on the audience, which is a shame as they seemed logically airtight. Having a goal of retrieving main girl’s body and an opposing organization headed by another smarty is fine, but the action conflict itself left much to be desired. While not bad, the animation strained to keep up in later episodes, the choreography was more stylized than elegant or readable, and their length actually unwelcome as they could begin to feel like padding. Moreso when the superhuman ‘insurance agents’ began showing up for one-off fights to shore up the numbers disparity- it felt forced and I would have preferred more brisk mysteries and less fighting. Still recommended.


1. Spy Kyoushitsu 2nd Season: While edging out the top spot this season, I can’t say this set of episodes was as strong as the first on the whole(though it came close more than a few times). Klaus is still a gary Stu, but an enjoyable one who bounces off the girls well and cannot perform the duties of this magnitude solo any longer. The first arc this season was definitely a stand out exploring some more of the girl’s motivations and aptitudes. The following ‘purple ant’ arc was stretched enough and had some outlandish contrivances resulting in a disappointment to end on, but the heart of cute girls doing spy stuff is still as alluring as ever, and the twists, while really straining feasibility this time, still got a pass.

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Special awards are the outcry of the weeb soul, don’t you know?

Genjitsu no Yohane -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR- was the best show I dropped this season. It’s a pity since I liked the premise that is shared among an alarming number of PA works shows: girl loses her way when following her dreams doesn’t work out so she goes to a little town in the boonies to reconnect with a community and find fulfillment in this peaceful life instead. Add magic to taste and mix thoroughly. The production quality was on point. The characters were well designed and had some depth. There were some good character moments and the banter was welcome. Even the silly sentai segments were cute, but… something was off. I spent most of each episode bored and waiting for it to give me a reason to press on. The closest approximation I can give to my dissatisfaction are those shows where cute girls spend entire episodes making small talk over pastries and tea. There was nothing going on in my wheelhouse of interest, meaning I’m not the target audience for this show. Too bad, indeed.


Okashi na Tensei was the worst show I finished: On the flip side, dying on Cake Boss is a decent isekai hook, even when I know where this is going (hint: the septic tank). What saved this utterly tripe production, I think, was the focus on politics and noble conflicts above the main character’s markedly stupid desire to create a real (2nd) life Candy Land. Taking a page from Ascendance of a Bookworm, Pastry has his work cut out for him in reshaping a generic fantasy land into a world that could support his unexplained lust for sweets distribution; staving off some local bandits is just the first step. Also welcome was that his ‘cheat skill’ or magic in this case has absolutely nothing to do with making sweets at face value, so becoming a passiter again will have to be done the hard way. A decent ride, but by the end, I was about done with it.


The darwin evolution of taste mutation is awarded to Masamune-kun no Revenge R: I was in hate/love with the first season (see my Winter 2017 entry), but I quickly found myself struggling to get through the second half of the world’s dumbest revenge story. Much to my surprise, the main conflict was more or less concluded within four episodes of this season start. To no one’s surprise, it was accompanied by a ‘twist’ that made the main girl and guy ‘no fault’ and simply a misunderstanding… presumably to prevent any interesting dynamics entering into their relationship going forward. That drained what little desire I had left to continue whatever inane obstacles the show would throw at them before the conclusion.


Uchi no Kaisha no Chiisai Senpai no Hanashi peered in from the outside: I really wanted to like this more, but the repetitive ecchi focus and fairly timid character dynamics left me cold after a few episodes, even with two office ‘couples’ in rotation. Give it a try if you are starved for office-age romance that is somehow more reserved than the high school flavor.

Lv1 Maou to One Room Yuusha gets a pat on the back for telling a complete and satisfying story: Better than I expected, I always am at least cursorily interested in post maou stories with a side of deconstruction, and I was not disappointed here. 10 years after the war against the demon lord has ended, human kind returns to its infighting ways without a common enemy to unite it and the washed up hero pretends he doesn’t care, but the resurrected demon lord thinks he should. The setup works well and Maou generally provided solid entertainment. The story continues past what we get here, but this conclusion was wholly satisfying for my taste. Not every story needs to force a cliffhanger.


Seija Musou: Salaryman, Isekai de Ikinokoru Tame ni Ayumu Michi is wandering in a dungeon of our own making: I don’t know what I expected from this isekai tale, but what I got I wouldn’t recommend to casual viewers…there’s almost nothing here! The author didn’t appear to have any particular story they wanted to tell, so we got a ‘healer’ training in a basement for 2 years and then wandering around a dungeon for another year+ with almost no intrigue, twists, or appreciable tension. Seija Musou thinks some cute character designs and a recurring joke about a smelly drink would subsidize the lack of payoff or episode to episode entertainment value. It did not. My own refusal to accept that some anime are just boring fooled me into finishing some truly tasteless muck.


Helck (ongoing) snipped the wrong wire on the time bomb: A fair start and somewhat unique premise just couldn’t keep my interest when the demon king competition veered into distraction after distraction without ever offering any substantial answers to the admittedly interesting questions posed at the beginning until… boom. I got bored and quit. It’s a precarious balance teasing out suspense…


Suki na Ko ga Megane wo Wasureta wins out the ‘most anime eyes’ award in a season literally filled with anime eyeballs: Many lament at the ambition of GoHands’ animation philosophy of ‘go big or go home’, and the often pseudo-psychedelic imagery it can produce. I, too, was grinning the troll’s grin when the first episode splayed out needless 3-d panning shots and rotations with cell art only barely able to maintain its place within this perverted fusion, and I was rewarded with a much… cuter show than I expected. Set aside your scrutiny for the fact that the legally blind girl not realizing she is forgetting her glasses may bother you, but the conceit is worth the following doki-doki. Her strained expression of squinting is endearing and her otherwise empty head showing no signs of malice serve to highlight the eyes in question. The main couple is cute and make you root for them. Worth a look.


Jidou Hanbaiki ni Umarekawatta Ore wa Meikyuu wo Samayou unwrapped a lukewarm nothingburger out of a vending machine. More typical isekai trash, but the pull here is the frankly absurd amount of Japanese vending machine variety was fun as edutainment (or perhaps advertisement?). Much more so than the flaccid adventures and quests the new friends/customers around him got involved with. Given the stories we’ve heard about the variety of esoteric Japanese vending machines, I suppose this was only a matter of time. It didn’t resonate with me too greatly, but the half dozen or so episodes went down easy, so it’s probably worth a check out for fans of the subject matter. Unrelated, but think I can count on one hand the number of anime with menstrual pads; anime girls don't work like that.


Liar, Liar gets a safety vest for being easily the dumbest show this season: and this is intentionally next to the vending machine isekai. High school. Games. Rankings. Heads up displays floating in the air. Mind atrophy. This is the kind of lowbrow show where the entirety of characters, events, and even sociopolitical relations exist to enable a very specific environment for our main character to… do what he does. It is plainly written for viewers who do not possess an attention for detail. What these shows so often forget is that, by pretzeling everything over backwards to make the central conceit not look strange, everything else becomes a warped parody of reality under any scrutiny. This is Asterisk War stupid. Main character comes to games-ranking-driven high school and accidentally clowns on top player, takes her spot, and has to defend himself in future games with the help of an elite maid squad of maid cheaters. And there’s gatcha, because of course there is…


Dekiru Neko wa Kyou mo Yuuutsu ‘gets the cozy blanket’: There exists a specific mood where watching this would be an absolute delight (if the GoHands animation doesn’t make you motion sick), but I just wasn’t there. A feel-good at its core, Dekiru focuses on a man-sized bipedal cat doing house chores/cooking for his office lady owner who is ‘worthless’ by his own admission. “Worthless” meaning an adult at work, and a mental child at home. Without being too cynical, this also falls under the ‘marriage advertisement’ subgenre of anime that aim to showcase how great a special someone can be for your life, practically speaking, when the doki-doki ceases to play into the fantasy of romance.


Temple is awarded the 00’s ecchi panty plaque: Not bad or offensive by anime standards, but nothing stood out, either. Harem’s, as a formula, haven’t changed much in the last 20 years, so this should have had more staying power, but the trope characters and wheel spinning of the story lost me a few episodes in.


Yumemiru Danshi wa Genjitsushugisha gets a memorial for being yet another casualty of expectation: One episode in, this had me hooked more than anything else this season. The premise is simply… unheard of in anime: A guy is repeatedly rejected by his tsundere crush and eventually realizes… ‘maybe I should stop pursuing her’? Cut. Print. Ship it. ...Unfortunately, this is Japanese youth media, and the concept of moving on from a failed relationship doesn’t exist because teenagers apparently are ducklings and, once imprinted upon by love, can never meaningfully seek out another relationship. My catharsis in the tsun’s distress at being suddenly friend-zoned was also backstabbed by the show insisting she actually had no idea why she was missing his attention. For real, for real? Icing on the crap-cake was that Mr. main dude became roughly useless after being removed from his one sided courtship, the show insisting that his best life thus far was fueled by his barking up the wrong tree. ‘No fault’ to a T followed by awkward will-they won’t-they escapades and some other red-herring girls cemented this as just another naïve youth rom-com when the opening act had me expecting so much more. The first couple episodes featured some interesting conflict resolution and the show was strongest before it dove back into trying to fit a square moron into a round jerk.


Eiyuu Kyoushitsu: Gets the ‘bait and switch’ lawsuit. Eiyuu had, arguably, the single strongest opening episode this season, and what followed, a boilerplate fantasy highschool was so bland and uninspired by comparison, that I have to roll my eyes in memorial. Ya got me.